This time, bikers don’t make a difference

I mention that because most people evidently had no idea. According to Zach at LAist, only 24,039 people voted, in a district of over 390,000 registered voters.

That’s a turnout of just 6.16%. Which means only one out of every 16 people bothered to vote, in district that includes much of the Westside.

One out of 16.

Of course, local elections have a historically low turnout, but a large part of the blame has to fall on the short lead time. Many voters, myself included, only found out about this election when we received our sample ballots less than three weeks ago, making us scramble to learn who was running — let alone where they stood on the issues.

As in the recent election for L.A.’s 5th Council District, I asked each of the candidates to tell us where they stood on bicycling and transportation issues. Of the 8 candidates, only three responded.

We’ll ascribe that to the short lead time, rather than assuming they just didn’t give a damn.

We can also blame that for the relatively small number of people who read those statements. Yet despite the fact that the first of these statements only went up five days before the election, they still resulted in one of the busiest weekends, and the two days that followed, since I started this site — thanks in large part to mentions by Zach, as well as Damien at LA Streetsblog.

Even if she responds this time around, the irony that motorcyle advocate Cindy Henderson couldn’t take a few moments to show some love and respect to her two-wheeled non-motorized cousins tells me all I need to know about her.